The Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

DTM: is a model showing how population changes over time from having high birth and
mortality (death) rates to a population having low birth and mortality rates. The DTM predicts
that all populations in the world change in the same way.
1; DTM: What is crucial here is the timing at which mortality and fertility changes.

Stage 1: pre-industrial stage = high death and high birth rates.

This describes reality throughout most of our history. Societies around the world remained in
stage 1 for many millennia. (This is shown in the graph we made of worldwide population growth!)

At this stage, the population pyramid is broad at the base but since the death rate is high across
all ages – and the risk of death is particularly high for children – the pyramid gets much narrower
towards the top.
Stage 2: transitional stage = mortality falls but birth rates still high.

In the second phase the health of the population slowly starts to improve, and the death rate
starts to fall. Since the health of the population has already improved, but fertility remains as
high as before, this is the stage of the transition at which the size of the population starts to
grow rapidly. Historically it is the exceptional time at which a large family with many (surviving)
children is common.

Stage 3: industrial stage = death rate low and birth rates fall.

Later the birth rate starts to fall and consequentially the rate at which the population grows
begins to decline as well. Why? A. Parents adapt to the healthier environment and choose to
have fewer children; B. the economy is undergoing structural changes that makes children less
economically valuable; (they are not needed as workers) and C. women choose to have fewer
children than before.

Stage 4: post-industrial stage = death rate low and birth rates low.

Rapid population growth ends in stage 4 as the birth rate falls. The population pyramid is now
box shaped.

Stage 5: post-industrial stage = mortality low / what happens to fertility?

The demographic transition describes changes over the course of socio-economic modernization.
What happens at an extremely high level of development is not a question we can answer with
certainty since only a few societies have reached this stage. What level exactly the fertility rate
will reach is crucial for the question of what will happen to population growth in the future. If the
fertility rate stays below 2 children per woman, then we will see a decline of the population size.
If the fertility rate does rise above 2 children per woman, we will see a slow long-run increase of
the population size.

REVISION TIME! Use your handout and lexicon to revise the words:

Demography=

Death rate=

Birth rate=

Fertility / fertility rate=

Demographic transition model=